Tag Archives: Opinions

It took me nearly seven months, but over this last weekend I finally finished The Witcher 3’s main quest. During those 110 hours I experienced, in my opinion, the best that the open-world RPG genre has to offer… has ever offered.

A while back I wrote about how The Witcher 3 was teaching me to stop giving a s**t. The game’s narrative and predefined character were constantly coaxing me away from playing the “selfless RPG hero” role, instead favouring a more involved character in a personal quest line devoid of world-ending plot devices. When I wrote that initial piece I was barely 30 hours into the game; “The Bloody Baron” quest line had sunk its teeth into me and I was being completely engulfed by what was unfolding before me.

Now that Geralt’s story is complete, I have this overwhelming need to gush about narrative and just how subtly manipulative this game can be. Needless to say, there are some enormous spoilers after the jump.

Small note: I think most of us are tired of the topic of Gamergate, and while I would love to put it behind me, it still unfortunately affects me personally on a daily basis. I have friends who still face constant, daily harassment, and I am harassed routinely as well. For this reason, I’m bringing up the topic once more, hopefully for the last time.

When I was a child, one of my favourite things to do was play computer games. I often wasn’t very good at it, not compared to my (much older) teenage brothers anyway. I would spend literally hours stuck in the Police Quest or Spy vs. Spy games my family had on our computer, never really able to progress beyond a certain point, but persistent enough to keep trying.

It almost feels like there needs to be an E3 controversy each year. This year Ubisoft has provided the vocal gaming public with something to critique. If you’ve been keeping up with the E3 news then I’m sure you’re aware of what I’m talking about: Ubisoft’s decision to cut female playable characters from the co-op portion of Assassin’s Creed Unity.

Now, however, in a perfect example of poor timing and developer stumbles, Far Cry 4 director Alex Hutchinson has revealed that his game almost allowed for a choice between male or female co-op partner avatars as well.

So that’s two of Ubisoft’s biggest franchises at this year’s E3 admitting that they had thought about but later cancelled the option to play as a female character in co-op. For both games the developers claimed that this was all down to limited resources and timing. Is that a good excuse or is it just another endemic phenomenon of the corporate status of AAA gaming titles?

IGN announced earlier today that they are changing their review policy for particular titles that have the capacity to transform themselves over their lifespan. Re-reviews will be done on popular games that have been updated, patched, or stuffed full of DLC that it warrants a second look. Since NAG Online is tied in, in the background, with IGN through IGN Africa, it’s a policy that some of the staff manning IGN Africa have to take up as well. Its an interesting change and, I guess, mirrors some of the things being done at Polygon and addresses (but doesn’t yet solve) a few issues I raised in an earlier column, Should Day One reviews be delayed?

There’s a few things to take note of with this announcement, though. Despite the good intentions and the lip service it’ll be paying to games that truly deserve a second chance (along with the extra advertising revenue and the good publicity for the game developer/publisher involved), there are some angles that need to be addressed as they take this further.

There is this growing negativity surrounding the gaming industry, and it’s coming from a source that it really shouldn’t be: games journalists.

I’m reluctant to use the term “games journalism” because it’s become a label of ridicule over the past few years; a moniker that’s more frequently held up for scorn by people whose opinions differ from that of the writer’s. It’s probably why journalists like Jim Sterling refer to the job with derp-infused variants of “gaermz jernalisms”; it’s that whole “if I own what they ridicule me about, then their names can’t hurt me” mentality. It’s doubly effective because it’s also rather amusing; I do it as well.

The fact of the matter is that the particular strain of negativity I’m referring to is coming from games journalism – I’m not referring to the backlash that’s been levelled at the gaming media in increasing doses ever since Geoff Keighley sat next to some Doritos and Mountain Dew. This is the negativity perpetuated and felt towards the gaming industry by games journalists. It goes by other names: jaded, cynical, world-weary – you get the idea.

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